Standards of Practice in Animal-Assisted Interventions
The Standards of Practice in Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI) includes five sections addressing standards for handlers, therapy animals, assessment, animal welfare, and risk management.
What are the standards of practice and why are they important?
Standards of practice are common across disciplines and specialties. They help establish the basic desired and achievable level of performance and professionalism in a field.
As the field seeks to firmly establish the position of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) as a well-respected complementary modality for human health and well-being, it is critical to articulate the minimum standards for participating handlers, animals, and therapy animal programs.
Standards of practice help promote the following for the health, welfare, and safety of all who are involved:
- Assurance for professionals and clients.
- Resources for risk management and quality assurance.
- An educational resource for staff, personnel and policy makers.
- Evidence of minimal standards for competency to other professionals that interface with therapy animals.
Summary of Standards of Practice in AAI
The Standards of Practice in Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI) includes five sections addressing standards for handlers, therapy animals, assessment, animal welfare and risk management. Additionally, there are two sections with recommendations for facilities seeking to incorporate therapy animals and for researchers pursuing AAI goals.
The following highlights the key topics addressed in the Standards of Practice in AAI. Download an executive summary. These standards are evidence-based. View a full research bibliography.
Standards for Handlers
Although the importance of an appropriate animal for AAI is indisputable, the role of the handler cannot be understated. It is the handler who must possess the knowledge, skills and aptitude to ensure effective and safe interventions.
Topics examined in this section include the following:
- Responsible pet ownership.
- Handler knowledge of their animal, including baseline health indicators for their pet, ability to identify, understand and respond to changes in animal body language, and ability to protect and optimize the animal’s condition in different situations.
- AAI specific commitments, including handler responsibility, best practices for handling, best practices in working within professional contexts, processes and procedures for clients, and handler self-care.
- Access to continuing education.
- Maintaining exceptional ongoing organization.
Standards for Therapy Animals
Although dogs are the most common therapy animal, the potential exists for a variety of animals to provide therapeutic benefits through AAI. This section explains broad requirements across species and requirements minimum standards. Additional standards might be necessary for specific client populations, interventions or facilities.
Topics examined include the following:
- Appropriate species for therapy animals.
- Clear assessment criteria.
- Suitable temperament, including an affiliative nature, workable curiosity, and capacity of client interaction and adaptability in distracting environments.
- Handler animal bond.
- Ongoing health monitoring and requirements for animals.
Standards for Assessment
Proper assessment is essential to determine which animals are appropriate for inclusion in AAI work. The partnership of therapy animals and staff significantly minimizes risks of an incident occurrence.
Topics examined include the following:
- Animals should be individually evaluated as potential participants.
- Assessment includes physical examination, review of vaccination history, parasite prevention, and assessment of animal’s baseline abilities, characteristics and temperament.
- Consideration of risks for the therapy animal, such as level of training, health/vaccine status, and grooming protocols to prevent disease or infection and risk factors for the client.
Standards for Animal Welfare
Consideration of animal welfare isn’t simply a philosophical approach to AAI. Animal welfare also directly impacts client safety. When the sole desire is to ensure a humane environment, in combination with appropriate standards for the handler and animals, we reduce the risk of incidents that could negatively impact the health and well-being of clients as well as the animal.
Topics examined in this section include the following:
- Animal selection and criteria for considerations for participating animals.
- Clear welfare considerations including time limitations, routine veterinary care, and supervision.
- Public learning and response to concerns.
- When an animal should be removed.
Standards for Risk Management
A primary concern cited by sponsors of AAI is the potential risks. A thorough approach to risk management is critical and must not be overlooked.
This section addresses the following topics:
- Identification of potential incidents.
- Vaccination requirements.
- Risk mitigation.
- Emergencies response topics such as transport, hygiene and temperature as well as handler and animal health requirements.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Facilities
Facilities that seek to offer AAI should consider not only the requirements for therapy animal teams, but also the roles and responsibilities of facility staff in ensuring safe and effective interactions.
This section includes the following topics of interest to facilities:
- Identifying appropriate therapy animal teams.
- Identifying appropriate clients for therapy animal visits.
- Establishing program goals.
- Needs including space, supplemental training and documentation.
Research supports the notion that therapy animal teams should not only be specifically matched with the environments in which they will visit and/or practice, but that all humans involved in the intervention should be generally educated on the intervention (Hart, 2006; Barker et al., 2019; Kerulo et al., 2020).
Recommendations for Future Research
Although many people intuitively understand the benefits of positive interactions with animals in our lives, an emerging body of research is recognizing the impact that the human-animal bond can have on health and wellness. Continued empirical research benefits the field at large. This section includes recommendations for the following research concerns:
- Selecting therapy animals for research studies.
- Ethical considerations.
- Guidance for handlers participating in research as well as non-researchers seeking research.
Research that involves therapy animals should adhere to the field’s standards of practice and should promote ethical considerations related to therapy animal welfare while also moving the field forward through the use of sophisticated research design (Glenk, 2017; McCune et al., 2020).